married women fhould not be compelled to go and serve with their husbands in the mines or on the farms; that boys and girls under fourteen should not be employed in hard work, but only in matters of household fervice, and that, till their coming of age, they should be under their or appointed guardians. parents to the Burgos. This Junta alfo recommended that the unmar- Additions ried Indian women should work in the company laws of of their parents; and that the laws which applied to the clothing of men fhould apply to that of women also. These suggestions, all of which have for their object the cultivation of family ties and of decorum, are good as far as they go, and deserve to be commended. In the course of this report there is a sentence, added probably by Peter de Cordova, or on his remonftrances, which is important in principle, to the effect that if the Indians were to become civilized, then they should be allowed to live by themselves.* However, as Las Cafas intimates, if these people had lived to the Day of * Que por que con el tiempo y la converfacion de los Criftianos fe podrian hacer capaces y politicos para vivir por fi é por fi regirfe, fe les dife a los que tales fe cognofciesen facultad para por fi vivir." Las Casas Hift. de las Indias Tercera Parte, tom. 1, cap. 18. 1418 to 1512. Judgment they never would have got their liberty in this way. The Junta concludes by telling His Highness that these additions being made to the laws of Burgos" his royal confcience will be entirely discharged," and Las Cafas fays " it is delight"ful to see how free the King remained from the "fins which were committed in the perdition of "those people" (the Indians). The fummoning of thefe Juntas is the first occafion of the grievances of the Indians being brought before the Court of Spain in a public manner; and these laws of Burgos are the first attempt at legislation to remove such grievances. We may naturally make a pause here in the narrative, and pass in review the main events and circumstances of the history up to this time. At the time of paffing these laws of Burgos, nearly a century had elapfed fince Prince Henry of Portugal, fuddenly refolving upon his first expedition of Discovery, sent out the two gentlemen of his household to get beyond Cape Nam if they could, and to do what mischief to the Moors Refults of might come in their way. Since then how changed and how enlarged a world it is! The whole coast riod. line of Africa has been followed out, and the discovery during this pe way by fea to India ascertained; the Atlantic has been crossed; the most important of the West India islands, Hifpaniola, Cuba and Jamaica, have been discovered; nor is the continent of America unknown, though only the margin of a small part of it is yet beginning to be colonized. Navigation, instead of being the childish, timid thing it was, has sprung up at once into full manhood; and mariners now lofe fight of land altogether, and yet go to fleep as fearless as if they were in their own ports. Europe has become acquainted with new plants, new animals, new trees, new men; and these new things and creatures will not remain mere curiofities for the Old World; but will henceforth be mixed up with its policy, its wars, its daily and domeftic habits, and become part of its nearest anxieties. The finances of great nations and the sustenance of numerous people will depend upon plants which our Spanish discoverers are just now beginning to notice, and are speaking of with an indifference which seems almost wonderful to us who know what a large part these things are to play in the commodities of European life. As regards the civil history of these new climes of Africa and America, much has already taken place in the course of this first century of modern Other conquests of this cen tury. discovery, which fixes, if we may say so, the fate of millions of people to come. Already a slave already has the first inftance taken place of colonists destroying aborigines (an example hereafter to be fo frequently followed); already have the peculiar difficulties attendant upon modern colonization begun to be felt, and the firft beginnings been made of state papers, fearful to think of from their number and extent, to regulate the relations between the colony, the mother-country and the original inhabitants. Nor, in other departments befides those of conqueft and colonization, have the European men of this century been idle. They have invented printing-about the fame time that they introduced a negro flave trade; and the two things will have a death battle for many generations. Literature has maintained its revival. Art may be faid to have culminated in a century which can boast a Leonardo da Vinci, a Michael Angelo, a Raffaelle, and a Titian. The science of international politics has begun, for it was during this period that the policy of European nations became fomething like what it is now, so that we feel as if we were immediately related to the men of that day, though if we step back a few years in history, men then feem ancients to us. Taking it altogether, this particular hundred years will only yield as yet to one other century in the annals of the world. There is never wanting, however, the slave to fit in the chariot at any mortal triumph. And when, with fome knowledge of what has taken place fince, we look over the proceedings of this century (especially as regards these discoveries and conquefts with which we are at present concerned) we almost feel as if nothing had been gained for Human triumphs humanity, fo large are the drawbacks. Not that not all I can believe, and I trust, reader, you think with gain. me, that the world goes on toiling and suffering and aspiring, yet gaining nothing; or that we are to conclude that the conquefts and discoveries of this century were not a furtherance of the intelligence and the worth of mankind. But Ignorance and Evil, even in full flight deal terrible backhanded strokes upon their purfuers. In the very cafe before us, in this discovery of the Indies, what do we find? From want of understanding their fellow-men, from want of comprehending what should be the first objects of colonization, these early discoverers are doing what they can to produce a displacement of human life which will be very mischievous to as remote |